video

Did you know that over 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute? How about the fact that almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day? Those are some crazy statistics and a very good reason why you should consider making videos. In today’s Thursday Thoughts video, I discuss five of the reasons why I think you should start making videos.

Video Transcript:

Hey, what’s up? It’s Jerad and I have a Thursday thoughts video for you, and that is Five Reasons Why You Should Start Making Videos. Just like I am right now, I’m making a video. And making videos is easy. It can be scary and a lot of people don’t like the idea, and I totally get it. But making videos, there are five reasons why I think that it’s a good idea for you whether you are just starting out in maybe a new entrepreneurial venture.

You’re thinking about getting into freelancing. You’re working on trying to find an alternative income source, or you just have something interesting that’s a hobby and you want to share that with the world. Video is a great way to do that and I want to talk about five reasons why you should do that, and maybe even start today.

1. Making Videos Help Your Public Speaking Skills

The first is that it helps with your public speaking skills. Now, I may not be the most eloquent speaker ever, but definitely creating videos has helped with my public speaking skills. I tend to talk fast. Sometimes I even kind of stumble over my words and whatnot. But over the years in making videos, I’ve gotten so much better at speaking and when I have to get up in front of people and speak, I can do that so much easier because I’ve been practicing. I’m sitting here talking to a camera, which a lot of people don’t like doing. But it’s a lot easier to get used to that than it is speaking to people in person.

But now I’ve gotten to the point where I can go into any situation. And as long as I have the information that I need, I could speak to people about it and I don’t feel afraid to. So, it really helps with your public speaking skills. Especially because after you make the video, you can go back and watch it. You can learn some of the things that you do maybe that you don’t even really notice like a lot of times I say “uh” or “um”, or these little filler things that I put in place when really just stopping would be fine. But I put these words in place and it kind of makes for a poor listening experience. I just did it right there.

So, it helps with public speaking skills, and the more videos that I produce, the better I get at it. The more I watch my content, I get better at speaking and just come up with things that I can improve on over time. And I get better at them the more that I do it. So, that’s one huge thing, I think, is that it helps you with public speaking. A lot of us have problems with that. It’s one of the number one things people are most afraid of and don’t want to do is speaking in public, so if you can even just get over that by making videos, it’s a huge win, I think.

2. Videos Are More Personal

Number two is videos are more personal. I mean, sitting here and watching me, we’re not interacting like we would be if we were face to face, but I’m looking at you. I’m trying to engage you in this conversation that we’re having. What that does is it becomes much more personal than if I just wrote out a blog or something and you’re reading my text, or you’re looking at something that I posted on social media. A video is much more personal and much more engaging.

There’s nothing wrong with blogging, writing articles and stuff. There’s definitely a place for that and for sharing information in that way, but a video is very personal and we connect with videos on a more personal level. It’s one of the reasons why TV is so popular, why it made radio … I mean, radio is still a thing, but it definitely made radio a thing of the past.

We don’t sit around listening to our radio these days, we watch TV. We typically only listen to the radio when we want to listen to music, or when we want something on in the background that we can listen to. Definitely, video changed things big time when that became something that we all had in our homes. And smartphones have smart phones, we all have video right in our hands. It definitely has even made video even more personal and more accessible.

3. It Builds Your Personal Brand

So, number three is that it brands you. Branding, or personal branding, or whatever regardless of what you are doing for a job professionally or even just in your leisure, if you want to be branded in a sense where you want people to recognize you around a certain topic, video definitely helps. It really does separate you. And I’m getting ahead of myself because one of my last topics is on how it separates you apart from others, but it really does help brand you.

I like talking about these things, because these are things that I talk about to clients of mine when I’m trying to get them into using video on their website, or more photography, or trying to get them in to blogging, or whatever for content purposes, or social media. All these things, these different topics that I talk about, in one way or another I end up talking about to clients. And if I’m talking about them to my clients, and trying to get them to do them because I feel that they’re valuable because they’ve been valuable to me, why wouldn’t I just want to share that to the world? And that’s one of the reasons that I use YouTube for that, to share that information. Not only just with what I’m doing here, but with the technology that I use and enjoy. We like to review those things. We like to share that information with others, teach people how to use them, and video is just a fantastic way to do that.

For me, it’s so much easier to sit down here and talk into the camera, and put a video together than it is to sit and write it out because if I write things out, I can delete and go back and do it again and delete. And oh, I want to say it in a different way and blah-blah-blah-blah. Video, I could just get it out. It’s my personality and it’s easier than me wanting to be super meticulous over my grammar and everything when I’m writing.

Video, it does brand me. It’s much faster and easier for me to get content out but it does brand me and what I’m trying to accomplish here because you’re seeing me, and that’s what I want. There are a lot of different ways to brand yourself or to get your information out there, but I think the best way to do it is to be visual about it and that’s what I’m doing here.

4. It Adds Value

Number four is that it puts value added on steroids, like I’ve always felt that there needs to be value in what I’m putting out there. If I do put stuff out there and maybe it starts out being valuable and then I start to kind of run out of ways to make it valuable, I end up stopping whatever I’m doing. And that’s why I tend to have gaps from time to time. I get busy. I don’t have the time to research and make sure that there’s enough value there and so I stop doing it.

With video, it puts value on steroids because you have an easier way to connect with people. If this was an article, it could easily be thousands of words and somebody would have to have time to sit and read that. And while it would be valuable, it’s something that would consume a lot more of a person’s time. Not that that makes the information less valuable, it’s just that it makes it less likely that they’re going to have time to get through all the content.

Instead, I could put out a video that takes 10 minutes or less. It adds all the same value and so it kind of amplifies that. You’re also getting the excitement that I have about what it is that I’m talking about and then you can also go and see all those additional resources. Being more visual about things sometimes helps especially when talking about the technical stuff that I do, the reviews and all that stuff.

I could upload photos and type-type-type, but actually showing people what it is that this product does or how to use this or whatnot in a video form adds more value. A lot of times, video puts that value on steroids because it makes it much more visual. It makes it easier for people to connect with and it makes it more personal.

5. It Differentiates You From Others

The fifth thing is that it does separate you apart from others. A lot of people can sit down and write or come up with content or even hire somebody else to write. But for you to get in front of a camera and talk about something or to share something or teach something or whatever on video, it separates you because not everybody wants to do that. Not everybody can do that.

And a lot of it is mental block. We get afraid to get up in front of a camera. We’re self-conscious. We have a lot of fears and whatnot and those go back to the first thing which is being better at public speaking and even being able to articulate thoughts into a camera. But it separates you apart and after you get a little better at it, it definitely makes you stick out from everybody else that they’re allowing the fears to keep them from doing something cool like this.

I have a couple of bonus tips that will help you get started and potentially grow faster. The first one is not to worry about your first videos being maybe lacking in quality or content. The simple fact of getting started is what matters. You definitely want to have some value to add in the videos that you put out there but when early on, don’t worry about them being topnotch production quality videos.

To me, the audio quality is most important in a video than it is the video quality. I don’t necessarily care if a video is a little dark. I can’t really see the best as to what’s going on in the video so long as the audio is good. If you’ve ever watched a video where the audio was poor quality, maybe it sounded like they were talking through an old Taco Bell drive-through menu thing or whatnot. There’re ways that audio just, it becomes … I can’t handle the audio, so I bounce and I go listen or watch something else.

As long as you can get the audio sounding good which even with smartphones these days, if you’re in a nice quiet room that has some furniture and some carpet to deaden the sound a little bit, you’re going to get decent audio quality even if you don’t have nice big lights or anything like that to make the video quality really good. Don’t worry about all of that stuff. Just focus on getting good audio. The quality of your video can improve over time.

As you get some traction, maybe you decide, okay, it’s time to get a couple of lights to make the lighting a little better and then maybe it’s time to get a microphone to get even better audio quality and then maybe it’s time to move on and get a better camera so that the overall quality of your video improves. You can improve over time. You don’t have to start out being in this perfect place where everything is right and you have all the proper equipment. If you wait for that, you’re never going to get started and other people are going to jump in and start doing what you wanted to do and that’s a bummer. You need to get started now.

That’s five reasons why I think you should start making videos. There are many reasons why even beyond this, I want to talk about live streaming and some other things like that in future videos. If you like this video, click subscribe. There’s a link down in description below to some resources, some tools that you can use that are inexpensive to make your videos better and even just some additional tips that I have for getting started and getting better video content out there. Check out that link. I hope to see you back here in the next video. Take care.

I have been making YouTube videos for over 10 years and learn something new almost every time I publish a new video. It can be tough to know where to start, so I put together this video discussing how you can get started making YouTube Videos today!

A few years back I decided to start vlogging. It lasted a few weeks and ended up consisting mostly of vacation short films. My family and I love watching those videos. My kids will be the first to tell me that I talk too much in them but I miss making them. I have been on this mission for the last few months to replace my income with revenue from my own projects. So far I am off to a good start. If you have not yet seen them, I have been posting my income report from my side projects. My plan is to continue to do that through the rest of this year.

Today I started a 90-day Vlog challenge. I am not sure if these videos are going to fit the typical vlog format, but I am going to take it day by day. I have a lot of topics I want to talk about regarding my business life, family life, spiritual life, and I sure I will find other topics along the way. I want to document more adventures with my family. We have had several adventures since I last vlogged and I didn’t film any of it. That needs to change.

My goal with this challenge is to use my camera every day. It was a lot of work, but I miss making videos. I also have a lot that I want to talk about and I think YouTube is the right place for it. As I have mentioned many times before, I get much more achieved using a camera than when I try to write blogs.

I am not sure if I will post every vlog on this website or not. If you want to follow along, I suggest you subscribe to my YouTube Channel. There you can find my older vlogs as well. If you know my family and I, it will be a fun trip down memory lane.

We love a good family race, so when it’s 100+ degrees outside, we race inside! We set up our Anki Overdrive track set and raced for the win! It ended up being an elimination race. Who will win the Family 4 Race Challenge?

Vlogging has risen in popularity since the first time I attempted it, but the one thing that has changed is that it is much easier. Cameras are much smaller and higher quality. Computers are faster at rendering video. With three children at home, there is a lot of activity around my life and I love to share it with family and friends. My hope is to put out a vlog on a regular schedule. At this time I am going to aim to publish a vlog on Mondays and Fridays.

I was an Apple TV early adopter back in the day when the Apple TV had an actual hard drive in it. With the latest version of the Apple TV, I have found that it takes a lot longer for movies and tv shows to start playing. It is often that a video will buffer for a while which interrupts our viewing. The Apple TV no longer has a hard drive inside for storing content. It has a small amount of storage that it uses as a buffer to keep your content playing smoothly. The problem these days is that movies and tv shows stream in HD and those HD files are quite large. On top of that, we have multiple devices that are connected to our Wifi network which makes the router work harder to transmit the signal the Apple TV needs to stream content uninterrupted.

Due to the layout of our previous home, it was easier to connect the Apple TV over Wifi. We could not get our cable internet modem or router close enough to the TV to connect the Apple TV by ethernet cable. About 6 months ago, we moved and I decided to place the cable modem and router behind the tv. We instantly had the same issues as before with buffering and the Apple TV becoming disconnected from the Wifi signal. This prompted me to just plug the Apple TV in directly to the router using an ethernet cable.Continue Reading

Ditch Auto: Start Shooting in Manual is a photography course that I put together and published online in January of 2013. I created the course because I often got asked what I did to make my photos look so good directly out of the camera. Most people shoot in auto mode on their cameras or in a mode that has the camera doing most of the work when it comes to exposing a photo properly. The problem with letting the camera do the work is that the photo turns out exposed right in terms of whatever kind of math the camera was doing to decide what was exposed and what was not. I prefer my eye because my eye is what is looking through the viewfinder. I don’t want the camera to do anything that I didn’t tell it to do and that is where the idea for this course came about.

The course took off from the start but I never imagined it would have reached 35,000+ students. When it broke 5,000 I was beside myself. I have big plans for Ditch Auto Part 2 and hope to start filming it shortly. I just have to get some client projects taken care of first.

It’s a free course and it’s free to sign up. If you know someone who has been wanting to learn more about their camera, send them a link to the course.